8 Comic Book Villains Whose Own Desires Are Their Downfall
7. Kraven
Sergei Kravinoff lives for the hunt. Literally.
The whole crux of the Kraven character is that he has to hunt the biggest and baddest things on the planet – whether that’s animals or even superheroes.
For Kraven, he has always seen Spider-Man as being the ultimate trophy head to have on his wall. In the stories where the villain has been portrayed as more than just a generic villain-of-the-week, Sergei has revealed his main motivation as being to put an end to the Wall-crawler, to the extent that this is the driving point of his very existence.
This was never highlighted more than in the iconic Kraven’s Last Hunt arc in 1987. That tale saw Kraven out to best Spider-Man in every possible way. Having captured and "killed" ol’ Web-head, Kravinoff then went as far as to don his own Spider-Man suit and prove that he made for a better and more efficient hero than his fallen foe.
Of course, Peter Parker wasn’t really dead.
Despite Parker being alive and well, Kraven was finally happy. He’d captured Spider-Man, he’d proved that he was better than Spider-Man, and that was all he’d ever really wanted.
As such, the rogue shocked readers by taking a shotgun and committing suicide. At achieving what he’d always wanted, Kraven saw no point in living.